The Wolves of Venice

by Alex Connor

  A woman in her late sixties was seated at a table by a narrow arched window overlooking a weary courtyard. Her hair was grey and tied back from her face, her profile stern, and lined as tree bark. Without speaking, Baptista watched as she counted out money, gathering the coins in neat piles and laying them in a row in front of her. He waited patiently, looking about him. The room was furnished with a table, four chairs and a menorah, the seven branch Jewish candlestick, the chamber divided by a curtain. Behind which Baptista could not see.

  “Why are you standing there?...”

  He glanced at the woman, who had turned and was looking at him. “... Do you wish to speak to me?”

  Nodding, he moved across to her. Now he could see her more clearly she had a resolute expression, her eyes stone grey. “What can I do for you, Signor Baptista?”

  “You know me?”

  “I know of you.”

  “As I know of you, Signora Fasculo.” Baptista replied, taking a seat opposite her at the table. He glanced at the rows of coins, his head tilted to one side. “Usury is forbidden in Venice.”

  “And yet I hear of Christians offering credit with interest, which is apparently legal. The Venetian banks obscure it by claiming that a service is being provided with the loan.” She held Baptista’s stare. “We —”

  “You.”

  She nodded. “I am useful because I am prepared to lend to the very poor, something the banks would not allow.”

  He nodded, then frowned. “But, Signora Fasculo, how is it that you have funds to lend?”

  “They are not my funds.”

  “Ah,” he said, his tone mocking. “So you loan in order to grant loans?”

  The great pale eyes flickered. “May I ask what business this is of yours, Signor Baptista?”

  “May I ask how you know me?”

  “You are talked about.”

  “For what reason?”

  “Does there have to be a reason?”

  He smiled, leaned back. “C’e sempre un motivo per tutto a Venezi.”

  She frowned. “Forgive me, my Italian is not good.”

  “‘There is always a reason for everything in Venice.’” He translated for her, looking around the room. “Of course you do not have to speak Italian with Jews, do you?”

  “No. We speak Hebrew amongst ourselves.”

  He nodded. “My employer —”

  “You have an employer?”

  `“Indeed. If a man holds secrets it is useful to have an ally who shares them…Where did your money come from, Signora Fasculo?”

  “From other Jews in the ghetto. People who appointed me to look after their funds. When we came here we were going to set up our own bank, but that was forbidden, so instead there was a vote and I was elected.”

  “And you receive a wage, a fee, for this service?”

  “A small one, yes.” She replied, her hands clasped together to prevent them shaking. “The people trust me.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “What?”

  “Trust you. Why would they do that?” Baptista repeated, his tone light. “Or were you better at handling money than your husband was?” He could see the shock register in her face and continued. “Signor Guido Fasculo was stupid with financial matters – he must have been, or he would never have left so many debts when he died.”

  She swallowed, but held his gaze. “What are you talking about?”

  “Money, Signora Fasculo… and your debts.”

  “It’s all lies!”

  “No, it’s not. It’s the truth. And I find it fascinating that the widow of a man who fled angry creditors in Florence should be put in charge of the ghetto coffers in Venice... “ he smiled without warmth. “You and your family left Florence and came to Venice to leave your past behind. Just as you left unfortunate creditors...”

  Silent, Guida Fasculo watched him.

  “...Naturally the people you cheated are angry. And, I imagine, they would be very grateful for someone to tell them the whereabouts of you – and your sons. So they can recover what is rightly theirs —”

  She looked at him pleadingly: “I am working as hard as I can to gather together funds to pay off the debts. I intend to repay every lira —”

  “But how long will that take, Signora Fasculo?”

  “I don’t know...”

  “Well, I can tell you – a long time.” He sighed, pretending regret. “We have two alternatives here. One,” he tapped the index finger of his left hand. “I can – and should – tell the authorities about the criminals living in our city. Of which you are one. Or two” he tapped his index finger again. “I could suggest a way out of your troubles.” He leaned towards her again. “Would you like to know a way out?”

  “My sons —”

  “Cannot protect you. Instead they will be disgraced with you. Venice likes order, the Doge does not tolerate crime - which is why the prisons are busy. Of course you may only be flogged publicly and your head shaved —”

  The colour had gone from Gilda Fasculo’s face, her voice curt. “What do you want?”

  “To help you.”

  “To ruin me!”

  “It is all a matter of perception.” Baptista replied phlegmatically. “Not all the Jewish in your ghetto are poor. I can see that. Some of the women are superbly dressed and the professional men have big bellies and jingling pockets. There are famous doctors and lawyers here who are paid handsomely for their skills. And I think you should use the trust that they have placed in you —”

  “I only deal with the very poorest.”

  “Signora, do not fucking lie to me,” he said quietly, “I am not a fool, neither is my employer. We know exactly to whom you lend money. And we know who your creditors are in Florence. We know all about you – and I’m offering you a chance to escape justice.”

  Her voice wavered. “You call this an escape?”

  “You can sit in here like an old crone for years and pick off your debts until your body is ancient and you piss when you walk. But it will take too long —”

  “I cannot cheat my own people.” She replied, distraught.

  “Your husband did in Florence.”

  “He was a bad businessman, not a criminal!”

  “And yet here you are, left to carry the burden.” Baptista retorted. “Perhaps you will reconsider the offer. In return for my silence, you will pay a fee that you can skim off the ghetto rich.”

  “They are not rich!”

  “Are you very stupid, Signora Fasculo?” he asked, his tone contemptuous. “We have already surmised that there are many poor here - and as many rich.”

  “But none is as rich as Venetians!”

  “Money is money, wherever it comes from,” Baptista replied, standing up. “My employer is offering you a fair deal – I would take it, Signora Fasculo, the galleys are not a place for old women.”

  *

  And here I am, entering the tale again. Not in chronological order, but as the story flows best. It was essential that I positioned most of the principal characters in place first; Pietro Aretino, Adamo Baptista, Barent der Witt and Ira and Rosella Tabat. Oh, and of course, Tintoretto. I have now set the skittles on the board and, in time, they will all begin to fall.

  What you didn’t know until now was that I, Marco Gianetti, am apprenticed to Signor Tintoretto, the contract drawn up six months ago by my father, Jacopo. Apparently he had almost begged Il Furioso to accept me as his apprentice as my talent is, at best, ‘pedestrian’.

  I could have had the talent of a flea, but the Gianetti family is one of the wealthiest in Venice and artists – even revered ones - always need money. Naturally, if my father had tried the same approach with Titian he would not have had the same result; Venice’s premier painter is sleek with success and boasts full pockets. Kings and Doges fight to be subjects of Titian, Tintoretto having spent years growling and running behind for scraps.

  No one disputes his genius, but Il Furioso is just that; furioso th
at his talent has been constantly undermined by Titian. But as Venice is a city of opportunists when Titian was called to Germany and France his absence left a sinkhole into which Tintoretto dived, head first.

  And so it was in the winter of 1548, when Il Furioso was glossy with triumph, his reputation fixed by the four paintings had created for the Scuola di St Marco. In Titian’s absence the little dyer had been seen stomping across the city, with me in attendance, often carrying small wooden boxes and a battered felt bag of paints and oils. My master had other assistants, but I made him laugh, so he favoured me.

  The very thing my father loathed, made me popular with Tintoretto and one bitter February morning when Venice glowered like a sick cat, my master called for me, grabbing my arm as I entered.

  “You are late! You are always late. Why?” he asked, pausing at the sound of the clock striking from St Marks. “We begin work at the same time every day, why can you not remember that?”

  “‘We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.’” I replied, smiling. “Aristotle.”

  “Aristotle was not a painter, Marco. You are. Only if you were learning to be a philosopher would quoting a dead Greek support your argument.” He led me to a side table, pulling away a cloth. “Light the candles.”

  As he did many times before when he was planning a new work, Tintoretto had created a series of wax figures, in various attitudes, one suspended from the top of the box by a piece of string. An angel, I presumed. The box – a vegetable box I had fetched from the market the day before – was stained with tomato juice and measured no more than two feet in depth and four feet in width. In height it was around eighteen inches, the whole tableau crowded. His wax figures frantic, urgent. Furious with activity.

  “An angel?...” I asked, pointing to the suspended figure.

  He nodded brusquely.

  . “…… he has a tomato stain on his arse.”

  Tintoretto laughed, nudging me with his elbow and was about to respond when we heard footsteps approach.

  A heavy footfall, accompanied by a hoarse cough, as a man entered. He came in from the bitter cold, his breath leaving his lips in a vapour, his weighty body covered in a white cloak, like a mountain under snow.

  Of course I knew him, Pietro Aretino.

  Dear God, it was such a cold day. The oil for the paint had begun to freeze so I had placed it close to the fire, and the linseed scent was rising. It contested the gardenia cologne Aretino had rubbed into his beard, his booted feet stomping over to the box of figures.

  Now I look back – so many years later – I realise the appeal that coarse tableau had for him. Tintoretto made – and manipulated – his models to compose his paintings. They were aids to his genius; without life, and later to be melted and reformed. But when Aretino stared at the wax figures, those colourless clever forms like squirming embryos, he saw them as he saw people. Humanity he could manoeuvre, twist, contort into the shapes he chose. A man. A woman. An angel. As ripe for picking as tomatoes.

  “Marco Gianetti, is it not?...”

  I nodded.

  “...I know your father.” Aretino continued, circling the box like a hawk circles a stoat. “Do pass onto him my admiring regards. We are old, dear friends, as you must well know.”

  I wanted to reply that my father had never spoken of him, but then my father spoke little to me of anything. So instead I remained silent and watched the great white mass of this famous – and feared - man walk about Tintoretto’s studio, his gardenia cologne pungent in the stinging air.

  “How many apprentices have you killed, Il Furioso?”

  Baffled, he glanced at his visitor. “What?”

  “The cold!” Aretino mocked him. “Before long, you will not need your little boxes, you will have frozen humans to work with.” He glanced over to me and smiled. “How would like to be a frozen statue, Marco? A beautiful young man for Tintoretto to put in a box and play with?”

  Embarrassed I flushed, struggling for a retort. Impatiently Aretino walked away. He could hear him exchange a little conversation with Tintoretto and then he moved to the door.

  He did not look at me.

  He did not speak to me.

  He did not acknowledge my existence.

  He didn’t have to.

  I was already swinging, like the little wax angel with the tomato stain on its arse.

  Chapter Six

  Discomforted by the pomp of Venetian Catholicism, Barent der Witt hesitated at the entrance to the chapel, remembering the cool white interiors of the Dutch churches in his homeland. He longed for the cold North light that glowed on white alabaster pillars, for the azure blue of a silent morning and the first powdering of snow on the canals which promised a hard freeze. Nothing froze in Venice. Nothing burned the skin as savagely as when a man accidentally touched an Amsterdam railing on a winter’s morning.

  He fingered the vial around his neck, amused at the furtive attention it provoked. Of course it would have been self defeating to explain what the potion inside was; much better to allow people to imagine; to fret over supposed sorcery. Der Witt pushed back his rigid black hat – so popular in Amsterdam – and glanced at his watch. Perhaps he had missed her, but she had said that she would meet him at eleven. And it was only ten minutes passed.

  Guilt had dried into his bones, into his blood, and even the nerves of his teeth. And there were only poor examples of those, his teeth blackened by years of chewing herbs, a broken canine kept numb by the application of tincture of cloves. No one realised his dental problems because Der Witt never smiled. In fact his embarrassment over his teeth had made him draw down his top lip slightly when he spoke, a mannerism that he had adopted as a child and was still using in his fifties.

  But apothecaries were not obliged to be light hearted. People believed in a potion given by a dour man in dark clothes far more than they would in one provided by a smiling boy. Let others charm in Venice, allure was not der Witt’s trade.

  The touch on his arm startled him, a woman pulling him away from the church entrance towards an alleyway. He could hear her laughing. “How fearful you are!”

  The Dutchman was not about to be amused. “Why did you call me out at this time of night?”

  “Did I disturb you, Signor der Witt? Did I pull you from the Doge’s dining table? Or a game of cards at the palace?”

  She took off her hood, her hair piled high on her head to allow her neck to be seen to its best advantage. Blonde, of course. All Venetian courtesans were blonde, and if not, they wore wigs, or dyed their mouse-back tones with urine. He had seen them sitting at the windows in the backstreets letting the sun do what God had not. Later, they would gravitate to the front rooms of the palazzos that looked out over the Lagoon, or parade across St Marks Square on their vertiginous chopines. Glorious specimens, dressed like Contessas, although Venetian law forbade the whores to wear pearls. Jewels, certainly. Pearls, never.

  A newcomer to Venice, on seeing these sumptuous creatures, would presume that their hold was complete. But the lure of women was equalled by the glistening appeal of young men, bardasses touting for business in the alleys or, for the more fortunate, in the reception rooms of the Doge’s palace. It intrigued der Witt that sodomy was punishable by death as it was so rife and so flagrant. In a valiant attempt to guide the tributary of deviation back into the moral watercourse, whores had been hired to sit at the windows bare breasted to entice the passing men. It was a noble effort by the authorities, but young noblemen still took their pleasures with bardasses and, if they were not available, women dressed as boys. One of the particular specialities that Caterina Zucca offered.

  But she wasn’t thinking of sex, or money. Not at that moment. “You’ve been asking after a girl called Gabriella. A girl who used to work for the Castilano sisters, a girl who has gone missing.”

  “What’s that to you?”

  “You are very abrupt, Dutchman!” she teased him, flicking some imagined fluff off the brim o
f his hat. “I could ask the same. Why is it important to you?”

  Without answering, he glanced away from her and looked down into the canal water below. He could see her image reflected, ghost pale dress under a sombre cloak, hair like a gilded ornament, and her face – with its skilful maquillage – lying adeptly about her age. From a distance of twelve feet Caterina Zucca could have been young, from a distance of twelve inches she was nearing forty. But beautiful, still beautiful. And as clever as the monkeys imported from Africa; quick learners, full of sly charm and pretty manners.

  “Why are you being so unfriendly to me?”

  He kept staring into the water. “I am unfriendly with everyone. I am a dour man.”

  “Not behind a closed dour,” she replied wittily, remembering their infrequent, but lusty, encounters. “I am only asking a question.”

  “For whom?”

  “For myself! Who else?”

  “Caterina, you want to know something. So what is it?”

  “What I said before. Why are you asking about a missing girl?” she paused, then added. “And why ask the Castilano sisters about Adamo Baptista?”

  “Do all women talk!” he snapped. “Our conversation was in confidence.”

  “They told me in confidence,” she replied. “And I told several others in that same confidence. I have every confidence in my confidences.” She laughed and touched his sleeve. “Don’t look so worried, of course I told no one else. But you would be wise not to ask anyone about Adamo Baptista. He’s a man that makes people nervous.”

  She moved closer to him on the bridge her gilded head almost touching the matt black of his hat. Her voice was so low he had to strain to hear her.

  “Do you think Baptista had something to do with Gabriella Russo’s disappearance?”

  “You are asking me questions I cannot answer.”

  “Oh, Dutchman, do you take me for a fool?” she said reproachfully. “There are several scenarios that could be possible. One, Gabriella was your lover and you sent her away. Two, she was your lover, you made her pregnant, and you botched her abortion. Three, she was not your lover and you botched the abortion. And four, she was Adamo Baptista’s lover - and you botched the abortion.” She clicked her tongue. “Which is it?”